...still as unusual as ever with my thread titles. This one holds some relevance though.
Some time in 2004 is when I sold my PC and bought my first Mac. This year marks 10 years since then, and oh what an interesting ride it's been. It was also the year I first encountered what would become almost a mythical creature in my book. I missed it by a few hours and a few dollars, and since then, I'd been looking for another one of these Macs, finding some examples that were priced out of my range, or too far away to collect. Then, recently, one finally fell within my reach.
I'd like to introduce you to my Macintosh Colour Classic. |)
With their rarity, I couldn't be selective about the machine I bought. It's probably just as well, because this Colour Classic - while well loved - was also well used.
This machine needed a deep cleaning before anything else. So the entire machine had to be stripped down, including the removal of shielding from the Analog Board and Chassis. Every inch of the machine was sprayed and brushed clean. The Floppy Drive was seized solid, and rather than attempt to repair it, I replaced it with a freshly refurbished one I'd prepared a few weeks earlier.
Every battle scarred machine has injuries that need to be attended to, and this machine had its fair share. With the assistance from a powerful metal and plastic adhesive normally used for moving parts, several plastic tabs were reaffixed to the front bezel. These won't be coming loose any time soon.
The CRT was horribly misaligned, with poor convergence and geometry. Some resoldering of the wires and connectors on the Analog Board, Neck Board, Flyback Transformer and Yoke connector was required. Most of these solder joints are rather clean, with the exception of a couple on the Neck Board that require further attention. The Focus was reduced as it was turned much too high. The Geometry was adjusted to bring the raster into line, and then with the assistance of Larry Pina's Color Test Pattern Generator, the Convergence was bought into line. One of the Convergence Strips was reaffixed to the tube, but requires a more heat resistant material than I currently have available.
All of that work brings you to the picture you see at the top of this post.
It's not without its flaws still. There are still some minor nicks and chips around the seam, and there is an Apple logo on the side of the machine where a sticker used to sit that has allowed the plastic below to yellow at a different rate. The Power Supply and Logic Board are due for a capacitor replacement, and some of the internal components will require some attention in the near future, but nothing incredibly major.
But this conquest wouldn't be complete without bundled software, which is almost as thrilling as the machine itself. Among the lot are boxed copies of ClarisWorks, SuperPaint, Lemmings, Disk Doubler and Macintosh PC Exchange, standalone genuine disks for Adobe Photoshop, Kid Pix, Print Shop, two versions of Norton Utilities, At Ease 1.0, System 6, System 7 and the restore disks for the Colour Classic. Perhaps most exciting for me is the boxed copy of SimCity 2000. There's a lot more here, at least a couple of hundred disks, but I still have to take inventory.
This machine came with a companion, which I was equally as thrilled about. I'll let that machine have its own post below though.
Cheers,
~ Mic.
Some time in 2004 is when I sold my PC and bought my first Mac. This year marks 10 years since then, and oh what an interesting ride it's been. It was also the year I first encountered what would become almost a mythical creature in my book. I missed it by a few hours and a few dollars, and since then, I'd been looking for another one of these Macs, finding some examples that were priced out of my range, or too far away to collect. Then, recently, one finally fell within my reach.
I'd like to introduce you to my Macintosh Colour Classic. |)
With their rarity, I couldn't be selective about the machine I bought. It's probably just as well, because this Colour Classic - while well loved - was also well used.
This machine needed a deep cleaning before anything else. So the entire machine had to be stripped down, including the removal of shielding from the Analog Board and Chassis. Every inch of the machine was sprayed and brushed clean. The Floppy Drive was seized solid, and rather than attempt to repair it, I replaced it with a freshly refurbished one I'd prepared a few weeks earlier.
Every battle scarred machine has injuries that need to be attended to, and this machine had its fair share. With the assistance from a powerful metal and plastic adhesive normally used for moving parts, several plastic tabs were reaffixed to the front bezel. These won't be coming loose any time soon.
The CRT was horribly misaligned, with poor convergence and geometry. Some resoldering of the wires and connectors on the Analog Board, Neck Board, Flyback Transformer and Yoke connector was required. Most of these solder joints are rather clean, with the exception of a couple on the Neck Board that require further attention. The Focus was reduced as it was turned much too high. The Geometry was adjusted to bring the raster into line, and then with the assistance of Larry Pina's Color Test Pattern Generator, the Convergence was bought into line. One of the Convergence Strips was reaffixed to the tube, but requires a more heat resistant material than I currently have available.
All of that work brings you to the picture you see at the top of this post.
It's not without its flaws still. There are still some minor nicks and chips around the seam, and there is an Apple logo on the side of the machine where a sticker used to sit that has allowed the plastic below to yellow at a different rate. The Power Supply and Logic Board are due for a capacitor replacement, and some of the internal components will require some attention in the near future, but nothing incredibly major.
But this conquest wouldn't be complete without bundled software, which is almost as thrilling as the machine itself. Among the lot are boxed copies of ClarisWorks, SuperPaint, Lemmings, Disk Doubler and Macintosh PC Exchange, standalone genuine disks for Adobe Photoshop, Kid Pix, Print Shop, two versions of Norton Utilities, At Ease 1.0, System 6, System 7 and the restore disks for the Colour Classic. Perhaps most exciting for me is the boxed copy of SimCity 2000. There's a lot more here, at least a couple of hundred disks, but I still have to take inventory.
This machine came with a companion, which I was equally as thrilled about. I'll let that machine have its own post below though.
Cheers,
~ Mic.
